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Old Materials Resurface For "Prebiotic Soup"
AliasMarlowe writes "Stanley Miller performed the famous experiments in the 1950s showing that amino acids and other building blocks for biomolecules could be produced by passing lightning through a mix of simple hydrocarbons, water vapor, and ammonia (thought at the time to approximate the Earth's early atmosphere). Other experiments approximated the environment around volcanic eruptions, but those results were not published. Following his death last year, a former student discovered the materials from those experiments, in labelled vials. Analysis of this material indicates that the conditions around volcanic eruptions (still thought to be representative of such events in the early Earth) resulted in a higher yield of amino acids than the simple lightning experiments, and resulted in a greater variety of amino acids." Pharyngula has a discussion of the Science paper, including a graph of the amino acids produced.
Just add volcano.
Cook 5 billion years or so and boom! You have a soul! Or at least, soul food.
We have since discovered that complex organic molecules form even in space.
(I am not a molecular biologist), but can someone explain if there we could expect some changes to the composition over 60 years? Are some chemicals produced going to break down in that time?
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Great, just add more fuel to the Scientology fire.
Here's an interesting philosophical question. After the first autocatalytic sets and simple replicators, but before the first cell walls, was the entire Earth a single organism?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
So it WAS the volcano people!
And I am considered a single organism.
It sounds like it would be interesting to check the amino acids and genome of the life that exists surrounding the undersea vents. Since our oceans are no longer "prebiotic soup", there probably won't be anything truly remarkable (previously unknown amino acids in the DNA for example), but if there is anything, that would be an incredible breakthrough.
We are the 198 proof..
My tutor at university used to get us to produce reports on old papers from the really early days of compsci, the 50's and 60's.
What amazed me was how many great ideas were put forward which just couldn't have been implemented successfully at the time, and how many have turned up again many years later as "new" ideas.
There are many ideas that were invented decades ago, but people have just forgotten about.
It makes you wonder what great ideas and discoveries are lying hidden in old journals that no-one ever reads.
Paul Leader
Amazing how much of the stuff in high school biology texts turns out to be not-quite-as-advertised.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
You know what else gives a higher yield of amino acids? 1 egg, 1 sperm, and 9 months.
I would say this is another potential blow to young-Earth creationists, but I think most of them aren't going to give this particular experiment much credit. It's unfortunate that we can't just look at the results of scientific experiments at face value without requiring a religious interpretation tacked on to the end. We'd all get along much better that way. Theists could do generally accepted scientific study without getting discredited for their beliefs. On the other hand, enough science already goes on with predetermined goals in mind, so maybe it's a moot point.
Disclaimer: I am a creationist, although not a young-Earth creationist, and I don't disagree with most of the tenets of evolution. I won't engage in debate over the merits of evolutionist vs. creationist perspectives, because there's little to no meaningful debate to be had. At this point, both sides of the debate are taking whatever evidence comes up and claiming it supports their perspective.
In other words, don't expect me to argue over the existence of God in this thread. Interesting findings, though!
I was thinking about this subject the other day, and I thought: life must have spontaneously appeared out of structures that were self-assembling and contained RNA or DNA and proteins. Why doesn't this spontaneously appearing of life happen continuously all around us, or at least in suitable places on Earth? And is the fact that this doesn't happen continuously, despite the fact that we seem to have many suitable places on this planet, a strong indicator that life as we know it may not have started on this planet but was indeed brought here on meteors or other heavenly bodies?
-- Cheers!
I would say this is another potential blow to young-Earth creationists, but I think most of them aren't going to give this particular experiment much credit. It's unfortunate that we can't just look at the results of scientific experiments at face value without requiring a religious interpretation tacked on to the end. We'd all get along much better that way. Theists could do generally accepted scientific study without getting discredited for their beliefs. On the other hand, enough science already goes on with predetermined goals in mind, so maybe it's a moot point.
Disclaimer: I am a creationist, although not a young-Earth creationist, and I don't disagree with most of the tenets of evolution. I won't engage in debate over the merits of evolutionist vs. creationist perspectives, because there's little to no meaningful debate to be had. At this point, both sides of the debate are taking whatever evidence comes up and claiming it supports their perspective.
In other words, don't expect me to argue over the existence of God in this thread. Interesting findings, though!
Your comment proves my point! I win! You lose!
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
I won't engage in debate over the merits of evolutionist vs. creationist perspectives, because there's little to no meaningful debate to be had.
A closed-minded creationist?
Whatever next?
It's unfortunate that we can't just look at the results of scientific experiments at face value without requiring a religious interpretation tacked on to the end
Why not? That's what scientists do. It's almost everyone else who has that problem.
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From TFA:
Yes, I know that Miller's reducing atmosphere is no longer considered to be an accurate representation of the ancient earth's atmosphere
This is true; in fact, had Miller used an accurate representation of ancient earth's atmosphere, the result would have been formaldehyde and cyanide - the very antithesis of life. It is interesting, though, (and I'm not trying to troll, or take sides on anything), but one thing the Miller experiment illustrated was that life could be intelligently planned and synthesized. Wouldn't that seem to support modern day ID more so than evolution?
The origin of the universe does not matter, because it simply exists. It existed before the first of mankind migrated out of the trees and will exist after the last tooth of the last member of mankind degrades into its component atoms. But we still need to understand our universe to the best of our ability. For some, that understanding comes from the pre-scientific age. For others, that understanding comes from the age of reason. And then there are those who see the whole thing as a pursuit of knowledge. Should an intelligent creature not question their universe?
And that's because it would be like debating the outcome of a fight between a tiger and a snail. But then why are you rooting for the snail?
Oh yeah, also:
Theists could do generally accepted scientific study without getting discredited for their beliefs.
That term 'theist' doesn't mean what you think it means. Pantheism and deism don't really fit into the definition of 'theist', which most people seem to the define as a belief in a deity or deities with (a) distinct identifiable identity(ies) that is(are) active and immanent in the world.
OTOH, that definition conveniently leaves out every religion except for Christianity and Judaism... ;)
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Which "many suitable places" on earth are you referring to? The whole point of the experiments was to find out wether a given mix of elements could have been condutive to abiogenesis wasn't it? Until we actually manage to replicate abiogenesis in a controlled experiment we simply don't know what constitutes a favorable environment.
Also, any newbie proto-lifeform on earth today would probably be instantly anhiliated by all the other vastly more complex and competitive microbes. Thus we are unlikely to find any trace of "primitive life-forms" today, (unless they're really really rugged, like... Chuck Norris-rugged).
I just wish everyone would get along. There is no good reason to think that a god would have created a universe with laws, but circumvented them in the actual creation with a snap of his fingers. OTOH, even if we definitively show the universe emanated outward from a big bang, or is made of superstrings or sillystrings or even silly putty, the fact is we will never know what the universe is outside of it, i.e., in what context it exists.
No one - other than mathematicians - has the complete answer, so both sides need to stop acting like they have all the answers.
If you couldn't guess, I studied math in college.
Help fight poverty: Punch a poor person.
Wouldn't that seem to support modern day ID more so than evolution?
The short answer is No.
The long answer is Nnnnnnnnnnnoooooooooooooooooooooo.
No one has all the answers, but science has more answers, and has a much better true-to-false ratio.
The creator is some dude in a laboratory that blew something up... We live inside that explosion as specs of dust on specs of dust floating next to glowing ambers.
I can pull just as much "evidence" out of my ass to support my theory of creation as yours... Unfortunately, none of it is based on observable truth.
You are kind of a moron. I mean look at HIV. It's mutated 20% from the original strain. That's evolution. You claim you are not a supporter of 20,000 year old Earth but actually you are supporting them in your comment.
How can you have "both sides of the debate are taking whatever evidence comes up and claiming it supports their perspective" when basically one side just makes up lies (very difficult note: lies are not evidence) and publishes word salad "science" which only survives since it validates a priori of Creationists?
Peace.
/.is against patents.
Making amino acids like in the Miller experiment is interesting but still leaves a major problem: Nucleic acids require the enzyme AND the template. There was a theory about using lattices in clay as a template but too me that seems as probable as little green men.
Following his death last year, a former student discovered the materials from those experiments, in labelled vials.
Which just goes to show that death is not an acceptable excuse for a grad student not getting their work done.
As a friend once told me, "If the Pharaohs used grad students instead of slaves, there would be a whole lot more pyramids."
Following his death last year, a former student discovered the materials from those experiments
How did he discover the materials after his death?
So this must be what my single cell carnivore is eating in it's effort to gain flagellum and a filter mouth....I was wondering about that....
"...a civilian some of the time, a soldier part of the time and a patriot all of the time." -Brig. Gen. James Drain
Are the HIV mutations information-gaining or information-losing mutations? It matters and I bet it's the latter. No evolution there.
Umm... there is no evidence for creationism. None at all. But nice try!
"I would say this is another potential blow to young-Earth creationists,"
YEC'ism is a matter of who they are born to(i.e. christian parents) and whether or not they are born with the intelligence to escape it. Many YEC'ers are indoctrinated into it, one way to reduce YEC, would be by preventing christian folk from outbreeding the secular. Outbreed them and outnumber them and via social pressure of numbers they will be increasingly be marginalized and they will die out. The real problem is human nature though, being born into weak bodies and minds that are susceptible to such propagandistic bs. We really need to get on biological engineering and designer kids so they will be intelligent enough not to buy this shit and then grow up and become adults who still buy this shit.
I was sad that even Betty page bought into christian bullshit... pretty, great personality, and even did good in school but in that one way she was dumb as rocks apparently. People compartmentalize, it's a fear of death thing unfortunately. It's been theorized that religion is an evolutionary reaction to awareness of ones own death.
That would be Kombucha. A strange brew that's also good for you.
Of course there are more than 1 type of evolution and only 1 has actually been "proven" (the type of wich you speak)
I've never understood why many people can't accept the co-existence of science and religion. They do not have to be mutually exclusive, it's just the extremists on both sides which create the problem.
...
Take Christianity and The Big Bang theroy. They work out just fine, so long as the Christian can accept that the Bible may not be a 100% accurate portrayal of how God did it. And the science side doesn't get up in arms with the idea that god wrote the laws of the universe. You know, maybe he dumbed it down a bit so that his bronze age audience could understand it.
My usual view of it is about:
God: In the beginning there was nothing, not time, not space, truly absolutely nothing.
Well, the quiet was nice, but it got boring fast. So, I figured I would write up the basic laws to run a universe, kick start it and see what that got me.
Abraham: Nothing, Universal Laws, kick start, got it. But what do you mean by "no time", how can you have no time?
God: Just go with me on that one, you'll figure it out later.
Abraham:OK.
God:So, the Universe exploded into existence, as it expanded a high energy plasma began to condense down into quarks, anti-quarks and a whole host of other sub-atomic particles. And it was truly chaos. Particles and their anti-particles were colliding and mutually an... Yes, what it is Abraham, why are you raising your hand, do you need to pee?
Abraham: Um, I think you lost me at about "Plasma", and I know what a "cork" is, but what's and "anti-cork", it is some kind of spout?
God: Oh right, a few thousands years early on those, aren't I? Um, how are you with Calculus?
Abraham: Calcu-what?
God: Non-euclidean algebra?
Abraham:
God: Right, fuck it. New clay tablet. In the beginning I said, "Let there be light!" and there was, and it was good. Still with me?
You know, maybe the Bible/Koran/Torah aren't really literal versions of what happened. Maybe they are just metaphors which worked for early man, and God hasn't bothered to update them.
And no matter how fun it is to pick on religious folk, there is really no harm in them believing that there is an invisible sky wizard behind everything. As long as they aren't forcing that belief on others. Or trying to harm others who disagree with them.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
Why would it be a blow to anyone especially the loony creationists? This experiment, looking at it a few years later, didn't prove anything but that scientist also can be caught in hypes. Even 60 years later after these 'ideal' environments were defined and many more experiments with it, nothing more but amino acids have been created in a lab. To go from an amino acid to a single living cell is a big jump. A lot of those amino acids have to line up perfectly into things called RNA and DNA and then they have to all come together and somehow be jolted to life and THEN you have a single cell. Then that single cell has to be strong enough and survive long enough in that environment (whether it be lightning or volcanoes which are both very violent and tend to destroy stuff) it was created in and then it has to somehow figure out how to reproduce and in all that time, these 'ideal' environments have to calm down to a certain level so multi-celled organisms can survive.
This hypothesis has very little credibility now in the 'real' scientific world. It might still be in high school and college textbooks and some of you armchair scientists might know of them but the probability of it actually happening that way is so very low that even hardcore (read: religionist) evolutionists just look at it and say 'meh, let's look at something else'.
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Why can't the Creationist ID pod people just take Horace's advice? You are NOT supposed to use a Deus ex machina to solve a complex problem! How many times do they have to be reminded before they'll finally get it?
This is a primary source of what you're talking about.
Membership is expensive, but well worth it IMHO. They've been offering free access to their library to a limited pool of people for the last year too.
Some few diggers do work this mine still.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I was sad that even Betty page bought into christian bullshit... pretty, great personality, and even did good in school but in that one way she was dumb as rocks apparently. People compartmentalize, it's a fear of death thing unfortunately. It's been theorized that religion is an evolutionary reaction to awareness of ones own death.
You do realise that, with that comment, you represent the atheist opposite of the YECs? By simplifying peoples' religious views as nothing more than "fear of death" you're just making up your own straw man to fight; that's similar to the way that YECs misrepresent the facts about evolution.
Some people believe in Dietys. Some of those belief systems contradict the observed physical facts about the universe we live in. Faith really doesn't seem to be about intelligence, it's about a wide variety of other cultural factors.
Being so heavily prejudiced against people with religious views means you stand no chance of really understanding them or, more importantly, convincing them as to why they're wrong.
Nick
Um, say what? 'Which' particular hypothesis has very little credibility? Abiogenesis? Just because it's a difficult field of study doesn't mean it is either uninteresting, unfunded or un-anything. For your edification and enjoyment a few crackpot lectures.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
A creationist who almost don't disagree with evolution? I'd really like to know more about your creational beliefs, could you explain it in more details? Disclaimer: I don't want to argue with you or anything, I'm just interested in hearing other people beliefs, that's great to open the mind and evolve your thinking.
Only scientists are willing to admit that the don't know everything, and that what they believe at the moment may turn out to be wrong. Besides the battle isn't between science and religion. The battle is between arrogant fundamentalists that want you to believe what they believe because they said so, and everyone else that want and deserve the right to seek answers they find more satisfactory.
Most of the scientists I know (I'm a college grad student, so everyone I work with) are very devout christians. Science and religion are aimed at answering 2 different questions. Science asks primarily "How" while religion attempts to answer "Why?"
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
Don't forget Islam, it's an Abramic religion too.
It's funny when people believe that we can't have existed without being created, ignoring that they believe the creator existed without being created*. Why didn't something create him, and it was in fact the meta-creator that always existed? Or the meta-meta-creator? Or why can't it be us that was the first iteration of life (as arrogant as that idea is)?
*though I understand the "oh but god is special so he can have just always existed, but we can't have" mindset because I was brought up with it and used to have it myself. It's not easy to break free from, especially when all your friends and family believe the same thing.
which is totally what she said
"At this point, both sides of the debate are taking whatever evidence comes up and claiming it supports their perspective."
What debate? Creationists stopped trying to do science about 100 years ago, so how can there possibly be a scientific debate?
Huh? Mathematicians have all the answers? Why are we still sitting around on slashdot?! I want my warp drives, teleporters and borg sexbots, and I want them last tuesday! Oh, and I also want them to explain this weird rash on my hand.
which is totally what she said
HIV is actually a very bad example. A majority of HIV researchers now agree that HIV is a Stochastic mutator - that is, it does genuinely random mutation, in this case between at least 4 subtypes (This theory isn't accepted universally among HIV researchers yet, but it seems to be surviving any challenges quite well, and the people who are becoming supporters are well established researchers, solid main-stream PhD Biologists and even the Nobel winners in the field.).
For a Stochastic Mutator, the chance for type A to 'evolve' into type B stays the same as the chance for type B to 'evolve' back into type A, and so on, so there is no net evolutionary direction to this process (hence the word stochastic). A stochastic mutator may also mutate in non-stochastic ways, indeed the Theory of Evolution says it must, just as every other species does. Figuring out HIV's actual evolutionary mutation rate, and what part of the total rate is subject to selection pressure, takes separating this stochastic part from the total data.
Your use of "20% from the original strain" is meaningless. 20% in how many years just might be a meaningful number, but what the hell does 20% standing by itself mean? Even better, talk about the mutation rates per individual offspring and per generation, instead of per fixed time. If you can't talk meaningfully about these, then you have nothing to contribute.
Let's see - you don't have the actual facts, just your made up ones, and you descended to calling lots of names. Yep, he's the religious fanatic and you're the rational individual. You've convinced me.
Who is John Cabal?
There can be no valid argument between Evolution and Creationism, first and foremost because the theory of "Creationism" does not exist, as there is no theory.
Note, I'm not saying that its wrong, I'm saying that fundamentally, there is no consistent underlying principle or discipline of Creation that "Creationists" adhere to, and agree upon, have vetted, tested, and found to be consistent. Concepts of Creation vary widely in scope and reasoning. So, you believe in God, and you believe in some notion of Creation, but "Creationism/Creationists" don't exist.
Secondarily, the notion of Creation cannot be proven. The underlying prerequisites for Creation cannot be proven. Concepts that cannot be proven are fine and good, even in the realms of math and science, but you cannot use something that cannot be proven to prove or disprove something else.
A "potential blow" to YEC? I can't even begin to innumerate the problems with this statement.
This entire 'argument' between Science and Religion is like asking "Who would make better food, The Faculty of every culinary institute in the world, or the Swedish Chef from the Muppets?" One is a vetted, proven institution responsible for every significant contribution to cuisine in modern history, the other doesn't actually exist.
This is where I get my recommended daily allowance of "Foot in Mouth."
Another blow?
haha, all science is against them. They have a non evidence based belief. Their interpretation of creation is poppycock. Many. many bible scholars have pointed out the creation is a allegory for 100's of years.
Literalists are committing the sin of the simplici(sp?). Jesus said 'I am the door.' do they really think Jesus was literally a door?
This isn't an attack on the existence of God, It'
s just that the minority of believers who are literalists are vocal and wrong.
There are many belief that do not need to exclude science.
The biggest one is the Catholics Theolistic evolution. Meaning the Geology and evolution science are just the tools God used, and that he gave a 'spark' of self awareness. This would be represented as Shame in Genesis.
Finally there is exactly ZERO evidence to support creationist.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Which has more information:
DNA strand 1: AAAAAAAAAA
DNA strand 2: AAAAAATAAA
DNA strand 2 has more information. Typing "HIV evolution" into pubmed produces 4563 papers. A little light reading to do before you get to declare that there's no evolution going on in HIV. Actually, your post is a perfect example of one of the biggest things I detest about creationism: you are personally responsible, albeit in a small and indirect manner, for the deaths of 1,000s of people by refusing to support sound science. HIV is evolving. HIV develops resistance to current treatment regimens. HIV gets even harder to treat, or cure, and people die in the process because people like you, who are willfully ignorant and proud of it put pressure on politicians to neuter science education and remove funding from studies because it doesn't fit your narrow sectarian viewpoint. Shame on you.
You beg for a response, I am a young earth creationist - one of the crazy "I believe the Bible and interpret everything through that lense" people...
But for your sake, I wont fall back on the infallible word of God - the Miller experiment was not based on the presently accepted conditions of pre-life earth and when replicated with those conditions produced jack squat. Moreover, the original Miller experiment relied on there being no oxygen in the atmosphere (since this would destroy amino acids) which implies that there was no ozone which means that gamma rays would have been hitting the earth and killing amino acids...
*dodges the impending flames
"Being so heavily prejudiced against people with religious views means you stand no chance of really understanding them or, more importantly, convincing them as to why they're wrong."
Religions people = trapped and blinded by their deformed biology, for anyone that ritualizes and believes in a higher power with some moral code or text and worships such beings, these people are stone aged people in a modern world, they must simply go extinct naturally as the dinosaurs did.
Being prejudiced against what is false is a just thing, being a prejudice against what is true is a bad thing. There is ultimate truth, in fact if there wasn't you couldn't think. Is something is there? yes(it is absolutely true) or it is not (no it is not). You couldn't have so much as a single perception, or navigate around objects in your daily environment. There is a standard for truth, mankind is too primitive as a whole to grasp it which is not my problem, I don't give a rats ass about "convincing" or "understanding" people so mired in their own ignorance and poor biology one can't hope to dig them out. Their like autistic children trapped in bodies and minds that distort reality, if I had the power I would prevent such things from occuring but I don't unfortunately. I believe in healing people rather then "eliminating them" but if they are going to drag the world into war, primitive tribalism and social strife, I will stand against such people.
Their inferior bodies and minds are the problem, they will die out, just like the dinosaurs died out. Just because their are many religions and gods, does not mean I have to respect them, or reach out to them. Religion is the cry of the powerless feral creature against his lack of intelligence and strength of will to overcome the decay that will befall him and his comrades in nature.
Religion, when I use the term, I mean against religious people that stick their noses up at what is true and try to indoctrinate their children into their backward untruths that lead this world to constant strife, interpersonal relations and war. Religion isn't the only problem man has, man is inferior all the way through - his biology is the problem. And scientists and engineers of the future will do their best to improve our descedents so that we can do away with our feral aspects of our biology, the evolutionary dredge that will be culled from us whether you want it to be or not. You cannot stop this process, it will occur, and religion for most will die away, and new philosophies will emerge congruent with what is true.
Muslims typically don't believe in the immanence of God. Allah's transcendence is absolute, unlike in mainstream Christianity and Judaism where God is both transcendent (transcends the world around us) and immanent (is present in the world around us).
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And in all those mutations in countless generations of the virus how different is HIV?
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Oh, look! Here's an old journal from the 1940s! Let's read it.
"Proposal for flying cars ...."
I've seen that one too. It's got a picture of a 1946 Dodge Custom with a suspiciously familiar looking orange paintjob with a rebel flag on the roof and the numbers 01 painted on the front doors.
Looks like a couple of hillbillies are trying to jump the Dodge over a black and white 1939 Ford Sedan that has a red bubblegum light on it's roof and a fat sheriff and his stupid deputy inside gawking at the Dodge in the air over their heads.
I don't think the Dodge will fly very good, as it appears way too noseheavy and the landing is bound to hurt.
b0ttle said: I'd really like to know more about your creational beliefs, could you explain it in more details?
Ok, for what it's worth, as one who believes that Creationism better explains life than Evolutionism, I'll give it a whirl.
First, I'll lay some groundwork concerning my conclusion. One's belief in Creationism or Evolutionism is determined by how a person believes concerning the origin of matter: either matter has always existed and always been in motion (as Robert Ingersoll posits) or God has always existed, created matter, and set it in motion.
The existence of God is a binary choice: God exists or God does not exist. One of these statements is true and one is false. They cannot both be true and they cannot both be false. It must be one or the other, just as an electrical switch is on or off: either the switch is on or it is off.
So which is it? It must be one or the other. Here is basically the two versions:
Version 1 There is no God. Hydrogen (and all matter for that matter) has always existed. These particles of matter over unfathomable lengths of time moved themselves together, perhaps by magnetism or molecular attraction to form water, proteins, iron, and all manner of molecules which, again over long periods of time, combined to form comets, planets, suns, and eventually a living organism. Over time the information blueprint of this organism (DNA) mutated forming different but similar organisms which changed even further over time. Eventually, blind organisms derived the ability to see, mindless creatures derived the ability to evaluate conditions and make use of what it has seen, and deaf creatures derived the ability to hear. Plants, themselves blind, deaf, and mindless, who have no concept of air currents, structural design, or gravity, formed, by blind, mindless processes aerodynamic seedlings which could disperse in the breeze. Spiders with silk glands (another chance mutation) appeared from the pool of organisms forming and taught themselves to spin webs and somehow imparted this information into its DNA. After so many millions of years of these blueprint changes, organisms becoming more and more complex, these changes accumulated to form a human being, forming at the same time both male and female versions that could come together and produce offspring.
Version 2 God has always existed, has no beginning or ending. This God created all matter, and from this matter God created the universe, setting the magnitude of suns and the spinning of planets. God also created all living things within a short period of time from each other, including humans; both male and female God created them.
Others more intelligent and expressive than myself have put it better than I but this is basically what it comes down to. People have argued for centuries over which is the correct version. I do not pretend to resolve such disputes here other than portray the two options available. Whichever version you choose is a matter of faith because no human has any idea where matter came from. There are only guesses and a consensus of plausible possibilities.
So, is it Creation or Evolution? For me, the evidence for Creation is all around: the earth, the elements, trees, the sun --all of these entities did not pop out of nowhere, hence, they were created.
Rocks do not move themselves. Mindless matter does not accumulate into the fantastic designs with purpose such as a reproductve system or the human mind. Since it is not plausible that random, mindless, chance processes or accidents could result in life as we see today then the only other option is God.
Evolution posits that all life started from a common ancestor (this ancestor arising via abiogenesis) and "evolved" over time via mutations and Natural Selection to the diverse species we see today. This theory cannot be proven nor can it be disproven. It is a possible explanation, just as it is possible a cosmic baboon farted life into existence, and many scientist attempt to push round pegs into square holes to try and make the evidence fit with the assumption that the theory is true, but it is not a plausible theory given belief in God.
A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver --Proverbs 25:11
I'm not a Young-Earther either.
That being said, there is no way producing a bunch of amino acids gets you anywhere near a realistic Origin of Life scenario if you are an atheist.
There are so many chicken-and-egg problems it is more like a minefield.
Everything from cell walls, to left-handedness of proteins, the minimal complexity needed for genetic code, reproduction, etc., etc., etc.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
HIV in humans isn't as old as time itself, probably less than 100 years, so that's probably the timeframe the GP was assuming readers would assume.
That people still believe in it or study it doesn't mean it's not on shaky grounds. There is still ample study being funded that tries to defy both standard and quantum physics (creation of energy out of nothing) or that tries to defy science (some states in the US try to tell the world was created in literally 7 days and the earth (and everything else) is only 8000 years old). Abiogenesis was believed in by Greeks but Pasteur eventually found out that nothing comes out of nothing.
The biggest problem with abiogenesis as is proposed by the Miller experiment is that they don't take into account that amino acids -> structured rna -> protocell would take much longer than the environment would have been around and even if it was, the environment would've killed off the cells as soon as they were created (the amount of oxygen needed alone would burn those things right up). Chemistry, geology and astronomy tells us that the amount of time such excellent conditions existed on earth would've been fairly short (the necessary elements in the atmosphere would've decayed or at least have reacted by then according to chemists, geologists tell us the environment itself would've changed a lot between then and astronomy tells us that it would've been all blown away by meteor strikes (which were common in those time periods).
I'm not saying it's a dead science or that it's all wrong, just that those type of environments in the big picture would've meant nothing.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
At this point, both sides of the debate are taking whatever evidence comes up and claiming it supports their perspective.
A closed-minded creationist?
Whatever next?
I would think he is noting that there is no possibility of debate when both sides are starting with non-complementary philosophical bases. The issue becomes too emotional on both sides (or because of the different bases of understanding, both sides tend to think the other is composed of blind idiots). This is where the philosophy of science people and certain (don't bite my head off, I'm not saying all) ID and creationist people come in and start discussing the philosophy behind it all rather than the "facts"
Not to be pedantic, but you mean Moses, right? Abraham was the one with the wrinkly old barren wife who thought he was too old to have kids. Just so we're clear.
You seem to be just as much a zealot as those you attack.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
Following his death last year, a former student discovered the materials from those experiments, in labelled vials.
So the former student died, was placed in labeled vials and then made this discovery? That is simply astounding.
It makes you wonder what great ideas and discoveries are lying hidden in old journals that no-one ever reads.
That's pretty much why the word discover was used during the Renaissance -- scientific belief at the time was that the classical civilizations had already learned how the world worked, but the knowledge was lost in the middle ages, and science simply "removed the cover" that was veiling this knowledge. Any in many ways they were right -- the Greeks had invented the steam engine and napalm, and the Babylonians had electroplating devices -- but the knowledge was lost with the collapse of those civilizations.
I'm sorry. But if you will believe in unsubstantiated fiction and label it as reality, then you are going to find a lot of facts that will seem to have the sole purpose of destroying your immature childish beliefs.
I am no expert on theology or science. But what I don't understand is how a scientist will reconcile the concept (matter cannot be created or destroyed) with the concept (matter exists). They ask "where does God come from?" but do not explain where matter comes from. The flipside is to say matter was always here but they get mad if you say God was always here. Then they say we just haven't figured it out yet and science will explain all of these things in time, but they get mad if you say we don't understand now but God will reveal Himself in time. If I were an unbiased outsider who believed in magic or something, I might say both sides sound like they hired the same propagandist.
I agree 100% It is a very unlikely occurance however you frame it. Hence my theory is that the greater you can increase the chances of this unlikely event happening then the more realistic the probablity of it happening. I believe that reproducing complex hydrocarbons formed in space in huge galaxy sized nebulas. These seeding grounds have all the materials and time for a unique event like this to happen. And once it happened in the universe, it would spread exponentially, using comets, supernova etc...
"The existence of God is a binary choice: God exists or God does not exist. One of these statements is true and one is false"
Um....no. Other possibilities: God used to exist. God doesn't exist, yet. God, which one(s)? Loki, Thor, Brahma? All of the above? None? Some combination of the above that ooze out, separate, then merge back together like the blob? Or unknown? Binary choice my ass. The rest of your post is similarly poorly thought out.
Check out the update: Jesus
Damn, Dude. I spent six months being pissed off at Ben Stein for claiming that every Atheist was like you, when, in fact, I had never seen a single one. Thanks for personifying the worst possible stereotype about one of the most hated groups in America.
Your words are empty, because it is not being a zealot to defend what is true. Insult is the cry of the man who has no argument and so trusts his biology and feral impulses that he cannot see clearly, so ensconced in the lies that his body and mind tells him that he cannot think therefore he cannot be listened to because he does not understand himself.
Human beings have justified war, poverty, oppression for millions of years, most people do nothing to alleviate it even when they have the power. Human beings have had millions of years, and they are still where they were thousands of years ago, with larger and more modern spears and bigger swords. The error in this equation is man 1.0 and his stone age hunger for mysticism and lies, over the long hard road of truth and uncertainty.
You are very young, or not very well informed... they are the people who would kill you at jesus's command without question. I've actually lived among these people so I have every right to want to get rid of this bullshit. I've been deep into christian territory so please keep your compassion for a bunch of lunatics to yourself, many of these are people who hope you burn in hell and would kill rape and pillage for their god (see: the old testament). Most christians aren't even christian according to the bible actually teaches anyway... I know I've read and studied it profusely as I was forced to as a child. That shit gave me nightmares as a kid.
Understand how f'd up these people are. Then come back and try to tell me how loving these people really are. These people are 100% mentally ill, they outnumber us so the founding fathers of america were forced to make compromises and so we must still today. It's not loving to believe what is false and spread what is false and harm and maim young childrens minds and give them false beliefs that will fuck with their sexuality, self image, and enjoyment of life and the false hopes and false dreams which will shatter their lives later, go see: http://ex-christian.net/
You are uninformed opinion on matters of grave and serious historical consequence.
Who do you think voted for george bush, and is going to vote for the likes of McCain and sarah dumbass palin? Anyone who's going to vote to drag the US into a war to protect israel to fulfill bible prophecy is a fucking loon, and no I won't respect them, or the source of what is fucking up this planet. They are partially responsible for fucking up the US government and this fact must be faced.
High school physics: E=mc^2. As in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Boom.
Or in happy song format:
The sun is a mass of incandescent gas
A gigantic nuclear furnace
Where Hydrogen is built into Helium
At a temperature of millions of degrees
We invented time travel, but some joker keeps traveling back in time and hiding the prototype, so we are continuously starting from scratch.
The rash on your hand is because you don't have a borg sexbot. We haven't yet worked out the bug where they eat their mate, so stick with the knuckle-children.
Warp drives and teleporters are, quite obviously, fiction.
Help fight poverty: Punch a poor person.
Um....no. Other possibilities: God used to exist. God doesn't exist, yet. God, which one(s)? Loki, Thor, Brahma? All of the above? None? Some combination of the above that ooze out, separate, then merge back together like the blob? Or unknown? Binary choice my ass. The rest of your post is similarly poorly thought out.
The fact is, matter exists. It is here. So where did the matter, the helium and sulfur and so forth come from? Either it has always existed or it was created by something that has always existed, something that preceeded the existence of matter. To say matter popped out of nothing is absurd so isn't considered.
The only other reasonable alternative to matter always existing is an omnipotent and all-powerful being that created matter, the universe, life --everything. It is indeed a binary choice.
As to which name to put to this omnipotent being, I submit to you this: just as a sane, normal father loves his child, God loves his creation. But he does not force us to love him because if he did it would not be love. It has to be a free choice. The only way to discern "which is the true God" is to examine all the claims of who people say God is and compare. I could tell you which one I have discovered to be the true God but my word means nothing. You have to examine the claims yourself. If you don't know why you believe in God, just taking someone else's word for it, that is not good and you have no foundation to stand on.
A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver --Proverbs 25:11
You have no idea how this "autism" works.
Research more.
I can't understand one can be an intelligent being and believe in $Deity. The quick answer is: in light of religion, independant thought dies.
On a side-note, I can't think of a reason why you would want to conjure up a 'being' to create our universe. Where did the being come from? What created that being? If that being could exist forever out of nothing, then why not the universe by and of itself?
You could do worse than to read "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins for a more thorough argumentation, if you can spare the time. Be warned, it isn't a very 'nice' book by most standards, but is sincere, rather complete and gives theists and deists a view from the other side of the isle. A view that they'll likely (hopefully?) never forget.
People 'need' religion like they need being set on fire.
queue the theist burning me to a crisp.
(It's well worth it, too.)
Karma? What's that again?
amino acids line up into RNA and DNA? You fooled me, I was under the impression that amino acids only composed proteins, wow. My mind is blown! The experiement was to prove that conditions of early earth could lead to many precursors to life. I think that it formed lipids but no real sugars. If you think at all that scientists will ever make reactions that generate life from only amonia and water with electricity you are crazy. The reactions presumably happened over MANY millions of years. We speed up reactions all the time, but typically with enzymes... which u cant throw into the mix and heat, oh yeah, early earth was pretty darn hot so you aren't gonna speed that one up any more than the million years... This hypothesis is VERY credible in the "real" scientific world. It's just that you are misinterpreting the experiment's hypothesis and making it so that humans can recreate millions of years in months, WRONG! By the way, real scientists have terrible english skills so don't even bother commenting on that aspect.
Um... if there was nothing in the beginning where did this God thing you speak of come from?
Now, if you're saying that God and the void are one that I can get behind. . .
I've never understood why many people can't accept the co-existence of science and religion. They do not have to be mutually exclusive, it's just the extremists on both sides which create the problem.
I think your views are incredibly sane. There's no point fighting over unfalsifiable beliefs, and there's no point denying evidence. I think as far as personal beliefs go, if you believe in a God, that's the way to go.
And the science side doesn't get up in arms with the idea that god wrote the laws of the universe.
Well, it depends on what you mean there. Anybody who attacks people's religious views over something that they can't prove is false is a douchebag. However, science most definitely has to assume there's no god. That doesn't mean scientists have to be atheists (I think most hold beliefs similar to yours), but it does mean scientists can't use god as a version of "here there be dragons" for whatever we don't have an explanation. According to the scientific method, theories need to make testable predictions. God created the laws of the universe isn't something that yields testable predictions, so scientifically we just have to go with "we don't know" when we get to things we can't explain.
It doesn't mean that science claims there's no god, it just means that science assumes that if there's a god, he can't be found with the scientific method and you can't assume his existence.
I've always wondered how that contradiction is supposed to work... God is supposedly above and beyond space, time, causality, physics, logic and basic common sense, and yet if you're in his good books he'll come and talk to you out of a bush on fire.
Please, you can have one or the other and not be immediately inconsistent with yourself, but not both.
If you have time (it's a series of 20 minute or so lectures), check out the "crackpot lectures" I mention above. Some very bright folks have spent a lot of time and done some very clever experiments to demonstrate a feasible path from chemical soup to living organisms.
Of course, we don't know it happened this way, but it's pretty clear that under the conditions we think existed on earth in the prebiotic stage, something closely resembling Life As We Know It forms in an in vitro environment in fairly short order.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
"The biggest problem with abiogenesis as is proposed by the Miller experiment is that they don't take into account that amino acids -> structured rna -> protocell would take much longer than the environment would have been around..."
I see a lot of people claim this, but they never show their math unless it's of the airplane from a tornado variety. Care to give it a crack?
"(the amount of oxygen needed alone would burn those things right up)"
Oxygen is a poison that some organisms have evolved to survive in, and in fact utilize in some cases. There was no significant free oxygen (of the O2 variety) around until 2.2 to 2.4 billion years ago, while life started roughly 3.8 billion years ago.
"Chemistry, geology and astronomy tells us that the amount of time such excellent conditions existed on earth would've been fairly short (the necessary elements in the atmosphere would've decayed or at least have reacted by then according to chemists, geologists tell us the environment itself would've changed a lot between then and astronomy tells us that it would've been all blown away by meteor strikes (which were common in those time periods)."
Short here means a few hundred million years. You're also assuming life on the surface or the upper reaches of ocean when even today most life is under that, and that the chemicals were a net amount to work with before they were destroyed rather than being created or replenished in some fashion.
No it's not.
Creationists don't believe in science, so how would these results change their viewpoint?
thegodmovie.com - watch it
I've never understood why many people can't accept the co-existence of science and religion.
That's because you want to avoid all conflict and pretend there is none. You'll squint and wave your hands to get around it, and call those "extremists" when they don't accept your hand waving.
You know, maybe the Bible/Koran/Torah aren't really literal versions of what happened.
God of the Gaps
And no matter how fun it is to pick on religious folk, there is really no harm in them believing that there is an invisible sky wizard behind everything. As long as they aren't forcing that belief on others. Or trying to harm others who disagree with them.
You're coming from a modern, multicultural, liberal view of religion. A strict reading of many religious scriptures isn't compatible with this view. You think there's "no harm" in teaching people to accept bullshit and argument by authority? What do you say to a Muslim who says "It's right there in the Koran, somebody who leaves the religion must be killed."?
"Either it has always existed or it was created by something that has always existed, something that preceeded the existence of matter. To say matter popped out of nothing is absurd so isn't considered.
That's a false dichotomy. Matter could also have been preceded by something else, or exist in a loop, some theoretical physicists are interested in the issue and who knows what they might come up with. Moving on to your two choices, your preferred choice has some problems. First is by what do we mean "has always existed?" I'll take it that you are meaning that your entity is older than the universe. However time started in the big bang, so in order for there to be a "before" we have to have a time frame outside of the universe, for which we have no evidence. I see no reason to go along with the assumption that this other time frame exists (indeed if we accept one unevidenced time frame, why not two, or a hundred, or infinitely many?). Second, we must assume that this entity has always existed in (at least) this second time frame rather than biting the dust in it right after starting our universal space-time, which I also see no reason to agree to. Third, you posit it as a single entity--again with no reason to do so. The rest of your post is only apologetics that not only requires these assumptions, but introduces even more with just as little reason.
I am neither young nor uninformed. And I have lived my entire life in a small town in a reed state, in a strongly religious family. They have taught me to distrust religious people as well, but you have to realize that a large percentage of the country are Christian and whatever fanatics you grew up around do not represent modern mainstream belief.
Intolerant fundies are simply a very vocal minority.
True: one could argue that both religious types and scientists rely on faith to individual degrees. I think many would agree, however, that religious types often rely much more on faith than do scientists--at least the majority of the time.
Yeah, maybe. Right now, there's some evidence from autopsies of early 20th century deaths in Zaire and related African nations, that put the first human HIV related death in 1924 if these results hold up. This case isn't an index patient, as the historical record for that victim strongly suggests he didn't pass it on to anyone else. The best guess for continuous presence is still less than this number of years. So, given that it looks like we have about 84 years old for an isolated case, I'd say the odds are, say, 30% for less than 100 years total, maybe 50-60% for right around 100, and maybe 10-20% that there's some undiscovered case back there significantly more than 100 years ago. That's just back of the envelope guessing mind you.
(The reason that particular case was selected for autopsy was a frequent diet of monkey brains, combined with recorded symptoms near time of death. There are almost no records in that region and era on homosexual conduct, and none at all on IV drug use going back that far, to steer researchers towards possible cases or, particularly, case clusters. Symptom records are incredibly spotty, but they are all anyone has. Except that, when somebody was bitten by a monkey of some kind, hunted monkeys of various types, or whatever monkey business ensued, it seems to have been recorded quite often.).
Still, I really want to emphasize that mutation rates measured in years is just not the way to do it. There are some real points being raised by some of the Intelligent Design gang, and they become much easier to explain if people are familiar with talking about genetics in terms of generations, % chance of a given organism being a mutant in each generation and other such concepts. Given that all professional biologists work in just such terms, defending an ID concept to people who don't, but who really, fervently believe in evolution, is like explaining the Libertarian party to a person who thinks everybody either registers for life as a Republican or a Democrat, and has no terms for any other choices, or even for not registering at all, or for switching parties.
For example, any professional biologist would agree that the time for, for example, 1 human generation, is around 18 to 20 years, but they would also agree with a much more precise definition: a generation is the average time for one female, with some assistance from one or more males, to bear and raise two offspring to the point where the offspring themselves successfully reproduce. Since we are a sexual species, it is simply illogical from a biologist's trained viewpoint to talk about the time it takes to reproduce 1/2 a pair like that was a basic unit. So you count the average time for a given mother to reproduce twice, taking only a little account of multiple births, as twins and above are rare in humans. Then you factor in infant mortality and other things and figure what the average time is over the course of multiple reproductive cycles, and eventually, you have a pretty accurate number that you feel comfortable calling a generation. If you want to make real progress in understanding the truth, clarity in the basics is the only way.
So that's why I objected to the GP assuming anything in such terms. You'll note that you, too, assumed he was probably talking in terms of years, and I'd have to assume it too, because a number like 20% makes no sense either as the chance of an individual HIV virus offspring being a mutant, nor as the % of each generation that are mutants. If he did mean years, it's awfully damned inaccurate, just closer than any of the other possibilities which I've thought of, all of which would be wildly wrong by multiple orders of magnitude.
The very choice of terms means nobody equipped to rationally debate him can, until a lot of other stuff gets clarified, so much stuff that nobody in their right mind would try to do it all in Slashdot's format. It's all stuff that the GP's 'side
Who is John Cabal?
They work out just fine, so long as the Christian can accept that the Bible may not be a 100% accurate portrayal of how God did it.
But that's the crux of the argument. The creationist/IDers/etc. believe in the Bible as the inerrant word of God*. To even entertain the thought you propose is to admit that, well, maybe the Bible isn't entirely, 100%, utterly correct.
The entire modern fundamentalist movement rests upon this belief, and they cling to it at all costs. It'd be like saying to a true scientist that maybe we can use supernatural explanations in our scientific theories. Such an admission is antithetical to the scientific method.
(*They conveniently ignore the fact that one could argue all day about which translations/documents/version one should use to make this claim, but that's another debate.)
-- Fugacity: Confusing chemists since 1908
I've never understood why many people can't accept the co-existence of science and religion. They do not have to be mutually exclusive, it's just the extremists on both sides which create the problem.
Because there is never any *reason* for faith -- and that is the conflict here: reason versus faith; science is applied reason.
At no point can it ever happen that it will not be rational to use reason... so, as long as you are operating from reason, you'll never find a necessity for faith.
Reason is not limited in the way the counter-Enlightenment thinkers would have it; if there were places that reason could not go, reason would not discover it, because these places do not exist. If they did exist, they would have to have a "footprint" of some sort or another where they connect with the rest of the universe, including the parts we know, as everything within the (or at least "this") universe are interactively connected by causality.
Given that, to admit faith into your mind necessarily involves, right at that point, a willful rejection of reason, because if it is always rational to use reason, it is necessarily irrational to abandon it. And once you do that, reason is no longer your basic method of dealing with the universe.
And no matter how fun it is to pick on religious folk, there is really no harm in them believing that there is an invisible sky wizard behind everything. As long as they aren't forcing that belief on others. Or trying to harm others who disagree with them.
The problem there is that faith, being non-reason by definition, essentially randomizes the content of one's mind -- roll the dice enough, and that "die, heretic" combination is all but certain to come up, given enough time. As evidence: holy wars were the rule until the secular Enlightenment forced the Christians to straighten up, fly right, and constrain their faith within the bounds of something greater: reason.
C'mon. You know the aliens didn't have DC-8's as spaceships -- they only looked like DC-8's. I thought everyone knew that.
"Intolerant fundies are simply a very vocal minority."
Unfortunately you're not even on my level... it would take years of reading for you to catch up unfortunately, when I mean "uninformed" I mean lacking in insight into humanity and human nature and it's inherent defectiveness. It's not merely intolerant fundies, go look at the ravings of mr scot here: http://www.uncommondescent.com/
These people still believe and spread things that are not true and fuckup their kids lives with their rather primitive morality, not only that most people in your red state wouldn't even qualify as christian because that is how bad they are at thinking and reading the bible (if they do at all), when it comes to things that psychologically comfort them which they refuse to let go of. They're mostly secular people with a crazy religious bent who can't let go of the blanket of religion that keeps them warm at night.
It still doesn't absolve them of the fact that they are a bunch of liars who harm the world by their lies and inflict their primtivism on others and most importantly - their children. Tolerance is not a virtue here, it is a vice that has come out of the enlightenment view of reason and humanity, human beings are not nice creatures. They are primitive and feral to the bone. Millons of years and we still have war and poverty ffs. All men are primitive and I'll be glad once we start moving away from man 1.0, human beings (that is v1.0) are a failed race, of this I am certain. I don't buy the myth that people are good people, if they were good they would restrain their feral impulses and we wouldn't live in capitalist society where we have people eat $10,000 dinners and some man has to live on the street homeless, the fact that we have homeless people at all proves that mankind is not very nice or capable of controlling itself as a species. That fact alone speaks volumes of how not good we are because most people are a bunch of selfish hyper individualistic animals.
People are naturally prejudice as we know, but it signals a deeper more disturbing message about humans being the descendents of animals -- i.e. we are more wild animal then humane. Considering we allow people to have billions of dollars while some disabled man or woman may suicide over not being able to pay the bills. This shows us just how messed up human beings really are and how ignorant / apathetic they are in reality despite all the flashy words, inspiring messages and whatnot. And also how fearful they are of commiting to building relationships with others they perceive as "the other" even when they haven't done anything wrong.
People who believe illusions and lies are the problem in this world, people who will make dumb ass decisions that keep the world mired in confusion and the ethical backwardness it is in must be called on it. The reason teh world is so fucked up is because we allow the buck to pass, the war in iraq could have been shortened if all americans got up and caused the biggest shitstorm teh world has ever seen but most are apathetic plebes who couldn't give a rats ass for a bunch of what they might consider "brown people" in another country.
The truth is humans suck so lets not sugarcoat it ok? Millions of years, we're still at war with one another, some one or all human beings have something desperately wrong with them that needs to be fixed.
I think Evolution is an undeniable fact, and it's also a little obvious, we are hairless monkeys with bigger brains. The Big Bang too I believe could have happened, and when I say "could" that's because I can't be sure about something that happened 13 billion years ago, but it sure makes more sense than God creating things out of nowhere.
But I also believe there's a God, and by God I don't mean "an oversized white male with a flowing beard, who sits in the sky" (borrowing some of Carl Sagan's words), but an immensely higher consciousness. The existence of that God does not go against Evolution. The laws of nature applies to everything, everywhere: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080517.html
That's my opinion, based on scientific facts and personal/philosophical beliefs.
No, I mean Abraham. In Christian Mythology, Moses comes about much later. Abraham was the father of Judaism.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
That's because you want to avoid all conflict and pretend there is none. You'll squint and wave your hands to get around it, and call those "extremists" when they don't accept your hand waving.
Really? You might want to get your crystal ball checked out, it's giving you false readings. As you mentioned later, I do:
com[e] from a modern, multicultural, liberal view of religion.
And because of that, I am willing to accept that we don't need to force anyone to believe or not believe anything as long as (as I said previously):
they aren't forcing that belief on others. Or trying to harm others who disagree with them.
Amazingly enough, our current world if full of people who believe in some form of an invisible sky wizard and they aren't out killing each other. Ya know, the millions of Christians in the US, Canada and Europe. The billions of Hindus in India and Pakistan. If anything, the middle of the bell curve seems to be willing to live and let live. Which means it's only the extremities which are violent. Good thing too, imagine having a billion or so people who really want to kill over religion.
You think there's "no harm" in teaching people to accept bullshit and argument by authority?
Certainly there is a problem with teaching people to accept arguments based on an appeal to authority. That is why it needs to be counterbalanced with a good grounding in critical thinking. However, to demand that someone not teach their child their religion is just as tyrannical as trying to force people into one. Or are we going to follow the Soviet route and start hunting down and killing priests? Atheism has had it's extremists too, and they were just as bad. It has more to do with humans being bastards than the religion they pick.
What do you say to a Muslim who says "It's right there in the Koran, somebody who leaves the religion must be killed."?
Going back to what I originally posted:
As long as they aren't forcing that belief on others. Or trying to harm others who disagree with them.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
Because there is never any *reason* for faith
Sure there is, it's a security blanket and all knowing authority. The fact is, at some point in your life, you will die. From a purely reasonable perspective this is a terrifying prospect, as it would entail the death of personality. Science has shown no evidence of an afterlife or anything other than decomposition postmortem. A belief in a religion usually brings with it some sort afterlife, some sort of continuation of consciousness, if not identity. It provides a reason to actually try to be moral in this life, other then avoiding societal punishment.
Religion is a way to coax people into being good, even when they know they would not get caught. And for them to have a way to deal with death. Reason and logic cannot provide either of those.
Seriously, give me a purely logical reason to not commit a crime for which you know you will not be caught. Without some sort of expectation of punishment, morality breaks down.
if there were places that reason could not go, reason would not discover it, because these places do not exist.
Ok, now you're just getting circular. A blind man could not discover 'red' either, that does not prove it does not exist. Only that he is incapable of detecting it.
If they did exist, they would have to have a "footprint" of some sort or another where they connect with the rest of the universe, including the parts we know, as everything within the (or at least "this") universe are interactively connected by causality.
Now you're really getting circular. You're taking the assumption that all places are detectable by reason, therefore any place which exists, even if undetectable by reason as a given, must be detectable by reason and therefore cannot exist.
The problem there is that faith, being non-reason by definition, essentially randomizes the content of one's mind -- roll the dice enough, and that "die, heretic" combination is all but certain to come up, given enough time. As evidence: holy wars were the rule until the secular Enlightenment forced the Christians to straighten up, fly right, and constrain their faith within the bounds of something greater: reason.
So, the answer is what then? Soviet style suppression of religion? That wasn't exactly puppy dogs and roses. Perhaps we should follow in the steps of Mao and his Great Leap Forward and round up, torture and execute Buddhists? If we're going to dredge up history, Marxism-Leninism has quite a bit to answer for as well. Reason is all good and well, as long as it has some moral counterpoint to it to prevent it from falling into any number of traps with the various moral theories in philosophy (ever consider the end result of taking utilitarianism to it's ultimate extreme? Let's cut up one healthy person to save ten people with his organs). This is where a religion provides a ready made moral framework. Yes, some religions have problems and we would certainly do well to abandon much of the trappings, but for many people it's just what they need to keep them going in the right direction.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
You'll notice I didn't provide a citation. The % is from memory, heard it from some audio book or podcast from a guy who retrieved HIV DNA from samples embedded in paraffin. Perhaps the Nature magazine podcast. They also mentioned that the mutations where all in one part of the virus DNA, not just random. Sorry for not representing the science side in fine style. Learning biology without understanding evolution is like learning mechanics without having the number zero. A better example might have been evolution explains why people who passed through Northern latitudes have light skin since the selection pressure of Vitamin D deficiency affected reproductive success. But why bother trying when people have sacred a priori?
/.is against patents.
That's a false dichotomy. Matter could also have been preceded by something else, or exist in a loop
There is no evidence for this. Pre-matter? ??
some theoretical physicists are interested in the issue and who knows what they might come up with.
Yes, who knows what they'll come up with. Meanwhile, I'm not going to wait around putting my faith in their speculations.
what do we mean "has always existed?" I'll take it that you are meaning that your entity is older than the universe.
God transcends time. He has always existed. God's "age" as you put it is infinite. There was never a "time" God did not exist. There will never be a time God does not exist.
However, time started in the big bang, so in order for there to be a "before" we have to have a time frame outside of the universe, for which we have no evidence.
Time as we know it may have started at the big bang. However, regardless of when, we know now that matter is here. It came from somewhere. What time frame it came about is not the question. How it got here is the question. Not one person on this planet who has ever lived or is living knows the beginning of time. Matter either has always existed or it was created.
I see no reason to go along with the assumption that this other time frame exists (indeed if we accept one unevidenced time frame, why not two, or a hundred, or infinitely many?).
And I see no reason not to. I know matter exists. I don't know when time began or of other time periods outside the universe. I can only speculate like everyone else about that. I see matter. It is here. I can only ask where it came from, not when because I cannot go back in time or trace atoms to an origin.
We must assume that this entity has always existed in (at least) this second time frame rather than biting the dust in it right after starting our universal space-time, which I also see no reason to agree to.
Again, God transcends all time frames. God does not "bite the dust." God does not die. You assume God has not always existed or does not exist, I assume he does. The statement cannot be proven or disproven so it has to be taken on faith in our judgment based on our interpretation of the data: matter exists.
You posit it as a single entity--again with no reason to do so. The rest of your post is only apologetics that not only requires these assumptions, but introduces even more with just as little reason.
I assume, and am certain, God exists based on the premise that I know matter exists and matter had to come from somewhere, that it did not move itself some of it becoming living organisms that can see, hear, smell, speak, and reproduce. My whole belief stems from this certainty. The other alternative is God does not exist and matter moved itself and jumbled itself together by accident. That is not an acceptable or logical explanation.
A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver --Proverbs 25:11
Don't forget that Jesus is meant to be 'human' now as well, with a body, and Jesus is also God, so that means that he exists in time.. meh. I was thining about this kind of thing yesterday - is it even possible for space-time to exist somewhere where there is no time, or for a timeless area to exist in our own universe? I doubt it. As a Christian I would have said "with God, anything is possible", but it ends up just being an excuse not to use your critical faculties anymore.
which is totally what she said
That is why it needs to be counterbalanced with a good grounding in critical thinking.
Try that in a country ruled by religious law. That's right, there are whole nations where religion is the law of the land. Even in the United States there are constant battles over teaching evolution in school. We've got "In God We Trust" on the damn currency.
However, to demand that someone not teach their child their religion is just as tyrannical as trying to force people into one.
I never made any such demand. I would certainly argue against it, but that wasn't the point of my reply. My point was the way you paper over the serious conflicts, as if only extremists had a basis for any.
Going back to what I originally posted:
As long as they aren't forcing that belief on others. Or trying to harm others who disagree with them.
It's right in the damn book that is the basis for their religion -- from God's mouth to the prophet's ear.
Shorter version: I believe in X because I assume it to be true.
I don't see how God can tell anything to anyone without breaking some physical conservation laws. Whether he spoke (sound wave energy where there wasn't) or talked telepathically (neurons firing in someone's head that wouldn't have otherwise), it means that the universe has been 'edited' to no longer be the natural outcome of the Big Bang. If God is willing to edit the universe, then he might as well have created the universe old, or some other shit like that.
[citation needed]
Also, TalkOrigins.org says otherwise, with citation included.
The claim about the oxygen is also shown incorrect in the above link, as well as the next claim in the list.
Wanna try again?
kurzweil_freak
5th Kyu Genbukan Ninpo/KJJR student
Be the darkness that allows the light to shine.
Right, but Moses was the one who wrote the first few books, according to Christian Mythology. So he would have been the one writing "let there be light" on a tablet, not Abraham.
I just jumped across from your post in the Spore thread. I can make a decent stab at answering this. For the record, I count myself as a ferociously moderate atheist whose ancestors progressed so far through liberal Christianity that they fell off the end into secular humanism (or something, who cares about labels anyway?)
But what I don't understand is how a scientist will reconcile the concept (matter cannot be created or destroyed) with the concept (matter exists).
So your problem is with the statements 'matter can neither be created nor destroyed' and 'matter was created once'. They are contradictory, and, briefly, the first statement is wrong. Or maybe the second one is. It's complicated. But you're right, if somebody claims both things at once they're wrong and stupid.
'Matter cannot be created or destroyed' is just a statement based on observation of the universe. Perhaps in the future we will discover an astounding new technique to create or destroy matter at which point science will happily throw away the laws of thermodynamics as old hat. As an aside, don't be misled by the 'laws' of thermodynamics. They're just another theory that their originator had the hubris to call 'laws'. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say 'matter is never created or destroyed in situations we have created or observed'.
'Matter was created once' can be inferred because obviously there is matter now and it must have come from somewhere. Or maybe matter/energy (because they are just different states of the same thing) has always existed. What is matter anyway? What is existing? What is our universe, and can anything exist outside it?
Any particular scientist might reconcile the two statements by picking some combination of those possibilities, but the general answer from science is that we don't know how matter happened and any evidence would be appreciated.
They ask "where does God come from?" but do not explain where matter comes from.
As a bit of background, 'Where did God come from' is the science reply in a first year philosphy argument. Religion says 'If science is so great, how do you explain the origin of the universe. If God didn't create it, where could it have come from?' Science replies 'If you think God created the universe what do you think created God? And if you think God is eternal, just Is, or needs no explaination, why couldn't you assume the same for the universe without God?'. It's no big deal for science that it can't explain the origin of matter at the moment, but if you claim that religion can explain the origin of matter you'd better have some evidence. Science and religion are not making equal claims - science says 'I don't know', no evidence required; religion says 'this is how it is', but where's the evidence?
The flipside is to say matter was always here but they get mad if you say God was always here.
I think I already covered the gist of that, but just to make sure: Science says matter is here now, and we'd like to know where it came from. 'God did it' isn't a scientific answer because 1) there may be no God and 2) we have no evidence He did it. Somebody who gets mad if you say 'God was always here' probably doesn't understand the argument they're trying to make and is just repeating (badly) what they heard somewhere else.
Science (science in abstract; individual scientists are just people and may be idiots) treats God the same way it treats unicorns - you can't prove that unicorns don't exist, we may simply not have found any yet. Whether unicorns exist or not doesn't really matter for science because they don't explain gravity or hydrogen bonds or the pheromone signals used by ant colonies. However, if you want to say that unicorns or God do explain one of those things you'd better have some evidence thanks.
Then they say we just haven't figured it out yet and science will explain all of these things in time, but they get mad if you say we don't understand now but God will reveal Himself in time.
.evom ton seod gis eht
I vaguely remember being in Philosophy of Science. But all I really remember about it is something about ‘crobes
My points about the beliefs concerning matter are, we accept that it is possible for something to either (be created from nothing) or (exist infinitely), yet we ridicule anybody who suggests either of these concepts can be applied a conscious being. The truth is, we don’t know. So, whether the concepts are applied to matter or to God, the concepts are equally plausible or ridiculous.
I’m thinking what you are trying to say is, while the scientific and religious views are both incomplete, the people who follow the religious views tend to say they know their theories to be true, while the scientists claim they don't know their theories to be true, and a theory with an acknowledgement of the uncertainty is better than a theory that is accepted without certainty. My problem isn’t so much that the scientists admit they don’t know everything about science. My problem is, evolutionary scientists seem quite certain the Creationists are wrong, and lump all religious faiths in with Creationists. I could probably summarize my view on the entire debate in two sentences. 1. Neither theory has been proven, so neither theory is more valid than the other. 2. Saying Creationism is absolutely right is no less absurd than saying it is absolutely wrong. I would agree, “i don’t know” and “this is how it is” are not equally bad, concerning an unproven theory. But “this is how it is” and “that is not how it is” are equally bad, concerning an unproven theory.
The acceptance or denial of an untested theory seems worse to me, coming from a group of people who promote the testing of all theories, than it seems coming from a group of people who admit they act on faith. Faith issues are one of the problems we encounter when we lump Creationists with Christians. Christians are all about faith. There is the belief that God wants faithful people. If it could be proven and demonstrated that God exists, then everybody would worship God to get into Heaven, and it would be impossible to act purely on faith. Intelligent Design Theorists want proof, and believe they have it, I guess. But they should not be confused with Christians, who are acting on faith. Christianity gets attacked as a casualty of war between Evolutionary Theorists and Intelligent Design Theorists, who both claim to be purely logical, yet are both acting on faith at best. Also, one might say “acting on faith is fine but don’t bring it into the classroom”. But they want the teachers to act on faith that there is no God, and act on faith that contradictory scientific beliefs will all come together harmoniously in time. They should also understand that Christians who act on faith are not fighting to bring Intelligent Design into classrooms.
I personally don't have a problem with Evolutionary Theory being taught in classrooms. I also think Intelligent Design does not fit in any science class. But I believe the concepts are handled improperly on Slashdot. There are people on Slashdot who will read an article about the Tesla and turn it into an Intelligent Design debate. I would much rather discuss ‘crobes as a seasoning for Prebiotic Soup than the same Intelligent Design debate with every other Slashdot story. I had no idea people could reply to the stories for this long, and hope you are able to receive my follow-up to your reply because I appreciate you taking the time. If anything I say sounds incoherent, it might be because my ‘crobe soup isn’t quite perfected.
we accept that it is possible for something to either (be created from nothing) or (exist infinitely), yet we ridicule anybody who suggests either of these concepts can be applied a conscious being.
Claiming that God has existed forever is not inherently more stupid than claiming that matter has existed forever, apart from the difference that matter obviously exists now, and God does not obviously (unless you're a believer) exist now. If you accept that God exists now, the statements are logically equivalent - so really it's a proxy argument for 'does God exist?'
My problem is, evolutionary scientists seem quite certain the Creationists are wrong...
Oh nuts, it always comes down to evolution v. creationism these days. First I'd like to make it clear that the whole evolution v. creationism thing only applies to young earth creationism - evolution doesn't clash particularly with any other Christian creation theories because it's entirely believable as the method of God's creation if you're inclined to look at it that way - as, for instance, the Vatican does.
and lump all religious faiths in with Creationists.
Yeah, well that's a mistake on their part. Unfortunately it's all very polictical and complicated, and the internet just makes it worse. Actual evolutionary scientists tend to have better things to do (such as science!) than flame people on the internet but there are plenty of armchair evolutionists (I guess that would be me) who like to heckle creationists (not me), and creationists who like to heckle evolutionary scientists, and the internet makes it easy to find a target even though the group you want to bother is very small. I've never met in real life either an evolutionary scientist or a young earth creationist even though they're all over the internet if you want to look for them.
1. Neither theory has been proven, so neither theory is more valid than the other.
Err. I'm not eager to address this because I'm going to have to say some things that come up in flame wars between stupid people arguing about stupid things. I assure you, I'm not trying to push an agenda here other than a friendly and relatively impartial examination of the issue. I make this disclaimer because...
Evolution is proven, in any scientific sense of the word. Creationism is not even a scientific theory, it's a statement without support. This is what drives the science guys like Richard Dawkins absolutely nuts - creationism and evolution aren't even remotely equal theories even before the evidence is examined. I could spend all day talking about how creationism does not meet the criteria for a scientific theory, has no predictive power (and hence no utility), and is by definition unfalsifiable. I don't really want to go into that - it's long and the internet is full of it already. I could go into it at great length, and I will if you ask. There are probably two points that I should make. The first is that evolution is real and useful and not teaching it in science classes would be madness.
Consider antibiotics. When you have an infection, you can take a course of antibiotics to kill whatever is infecting you and make you well again. You have probably heard of the problem of antibiotic-resistant infections, bacteria that have a resistance to one or more of the common antibiotics. This is a big problem in hospitals, because if you get an outbreak of an antibiotic resistant infection in the hospital it can easily spread to other patients with weakened immune systems who are in the hospital for some unrelated reason, and because the infection resists the usual antibiotics there is a risk of the patient dieing from a normally easily curable infection.
You probably also know that if you only take part of a course of antibiotics there is an opportunity for antibiotic resistance to develop. How this happens is that the antibiotics you take kill all the least resistant bacteria first so if you stop before they're all gone the
.evom ton seod gis eht